Savaii Sports Tournament

On Friday morning we had a sports tournament for all the Savaii high schools. It was far away, on the other side of the island in fact, so we set off early from school at 6 a.m. The girls were going on one bus and I was riding on the school bus with the all the boys. On our way there, after about an hour of driving, another bus approached coming from the other direction. As we passed, the two buses scraped together with a sound like driving over gravel. Then I heard the yelling. Boys in the back were yelling to pull over the bus. Two boys who had been resting their arms on the windowsill were bleeding all over the seats and had broken arms. Another boy had injured his middle finger. We asked a family nearby for their truck and the boys were driven the hospital. It wasn’t until we arrived at the sports tournament that I heard what happened on the other bus because it had kept driving. An old man had his arm severed at the elbow and it had been lying in the road. It was taken to the hospital from what I hear, but Samoan hospitals even in Apia don’t have the capability to reattach it. As told to me, the old man was lototele (courageous, brave) when it happened and had his arm wrapped in a lavalava (sarong) and was talking the whole time. This definitely took the air out of a day all the boys had been looking forward to and our two best Under 17 rugby players were the ones with the broken arms. I heard today one of the boys is in Apia to get his arm fixed at the main national hospital along with the old man. The other boy is doing well in Savaii at the regional hospital. Our teams still played and the rugby team made it to the semi-final round.

And now some pictures of the tournament and the last month.

Tuasivi girls playing volleyball.

The boys playing rugby.

A spectator from the tournament. This is for the Samoan speakers out there.

Dan, Paul, and Tui watching rugby from the grand stand.

A few weeks ago the water in my shower stopped draining and I would have to stand in a puddle while I showered. This sucked. I checked out the pipe and found some plant had sent its roots into my drain pipe and apparently it had reached maximum capacity, allowing no more water to drain. I pulled out about six or seven feet of roots and it was good to go!

Fresh yellow fin tuna. $3.50 tala per pound. So that’s 4 lbs for $14 tala – about $5 or 6 American dollars. Sweet.

Pufferfish for dinner. I had to “boil it until the spikes come off easily,” as advised by my principal. This took approximately 45 minutes of boiling on high.

It was delicious though; just make sure not to eat a spike.

This must be the first time a student has ever THANKED the teacher for a quiz. “Thank you! Mr. Owen for quiz. May our heavenly father bless you with his holy spirit. Thanks again.”